January 7, 2025

I want to figure out how many of my mother's great grandchildren are playing an instrument at this point.

 


I'm going to take down my Christmas/Holiday collage tonight.  I will burn some White Pine incense while I do it and smile at all the sweet things that happened to me in the past month.  I will also pay respects to both my sister, Barb, and my brother, Mike.  I've wanted to hear both of their voices today, or I did hear both of their voices today. In its place I may hang an assortment of photos taken by relations.  I have a lot in this house.  I actually have some beautiful prints of Mike's that I should dig out and frame.   
One of the sweet things that happened to me in the past month is my friend Emily and I committed to doing 5 mornings in the pool together over the next 8 weeks.  This morning was our 2nd day, she picked me up and we started our new class.  It's being taught by the woman who first taught me umpteen millions years ago and who was EJ's first swim teacher.  We are talking years and years that Betty has been teaching us in the pool.  It made me so happy this morning.  I just smiled through the whole thing.   

I came home and have been here all day.  Car will be fixed tomorrow and once more my friends have come to my rescue.  I'm hoping to be able to pay some of it back.  I have 2 situations where I can sell books coming up.  If anyone is interested in my book, Spirits of the Rookery,  let me know.   It's photos and poems created around the rookery a few millions up the hill from me.  I'm pretty proud of it. I'm not making a lot of money, and what money I have made has gone to really practical things, nonetheless, it is there.  



I'm creating a gallery show based on the 5 years we've been building LAVA.  I spent a couple hours on that today looking through photos that represent the work we've done in the arts and humanities.  We have probably had 45 gallery shows in those years and I don't think I have photos from all 45, nor would they fit on the wall, but I do have 20 good photos covering at least 15 of the shows.  I'm going to have to limit the number of pictures per genre.   
    The group that is fullest is theater.  I'm not sure exactly how many plays we have read in the past 5 years, but I must have 50 good photos of plays.  I'm going to have to do some smaller collages and I hope some good portraits.  T. will help me design it.  Tomorrow my colleague, Matthew, will come help me chose stuff for it.   I'll try to post on the development.


I did not get out to take photos.  These few were taken on my porch.   Sunset was very pretty, but just the colors that don't manifest well in the camera.
    I haven't written this week other than this blog.  I've got so much to write about, you'd think I would've, but when it's this raw, it's difficult.  So I'll leave you with a poem I wrote in December.  I will have my car back tomorrow so I will take more photos and have more to post.   

oh, the question about great grandchildren, hmmm  I don't know the answer, yet.  Is Anna still playing the flute?  Is Zoe playing anything, or Cheyenne?  I know nothing about Moriah's children and their musical leanings. I'll have to follow up on this because I really think that music intelligence is really genetically strong.   

        Prompt Four

 

My favorite toy

My stuffed animals

sang in my short musicals

sometimes operettas.

 

Small willow tree planted

outside my bedroom window

became a stage for those imagined

and forgotten stories made of song.

 

Many times renditions of

If I Were King would

belt out of a lion or elephant

ready to take the lead.

 

My father composed operas

on a card table by the Steinway.

But my songs were taken by the wind,

lost from brief imagination.

 

Those animals spent hours with me

performing what I myself could not do

Dancing and singing their eternal drama

awarding  me a loud and steady voice.  



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  January 3, 2025 The Complexity (what I refer to as the texture) of Life This is a photo of Michael Whiton, eldest child of Jean O. Whiton.  If you knew our mother, you know whose eyes he inherited.  Picture was taken by Linda Boardman.        I did not take pictures today, nor was my brain very able.  So tonight you get a poem I wrote 25 years ago that is more spirited than I could write tonight. I Believe in Color   I believe in red the changing forever-ness of red.  A pure rich red: cotton tee shirt red, berries on the bushes in the dead of  New England winters, cherries in June next to a slab of ripe brie. Magenta, a little redder than wine, blood as it begins to dry, the curtains I always wanted, floor length heavy velvet. Orange red on the skins of a tangelo; blood oranges in a light blue porcelain bowl on a small table near stark white walls. Dusty rose of an old flannel duvet, the height of fashion in 1980. I believe i...
Read more
Image
January  4, 2025 Michael E. Whiton  June 30, 1944 - January 4, 2025     I always talk about patterns, it is my researcher's brain.  This morning I texted with my niece, Grace, and asked her what her 12 year old was really into. She told me math.  He plays the flute in his school band.  I had an epiphany when the 2 things got put together.  To grow up with music as a constant all through your childhood you are exposed to patterns.  You become aware of what can follow what.  My 3 year old great niece makes up little songs, repetitive musical patterns.  Her father repeats them or adds to them.  She already knows how to put notes together.  That's math.  That's what Liam does.        So what does all that have to do with Michael's leaving us on this plain today.  Well, one pattern is that we all seem to be good with babies.   When Mike was 21, Jason was born.  He was good to babies....
Read more
Image
  January 2, 2025 Time is both too soon and too late.   Just keeps slipping.     I believe it was 1996 or 7 when I flew out to Bainbridge Island to see my brother, Mike.  He was very ill and my Mom was worried and wanted me to go assess the situation, which I did, probably in not such a diplomatic way.  He really was ill.  His liver was failing and he wasn't getting put on the transplant list, yet.  I've never quite understand the whys and the wherefores of all that.  But for the next 4 or so years he maintained, so sick, sometimes optimistic, sometimes beaten, but he made it to a liver transplant in August 2000 in Worchester.       24 years ago, holy shit.  EJ's entire life, a third of mine; and again he kept living, kept listening to music and trying to be kind and never regaining any reliable health.   His story is fascinating, and I'll tell it sometime, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to ...
Read more